6 ms·

Isaac Asimov on Security Theatre.

176 points by bdhe 15y ago

pavel_lishin 15y ago
I love Asimov's stories, but it always pains me at how wrong his guesses were in regards to what would be easy and what would be difficult when it came to robotics.
- jxcole 15y ago
  Since no one has successfully made a robot worthy of an Asimov story, I would say that no one knows what is easy vs hard when it comes to robotics. We can make guesses but in the end until someone has a working copy, we won't know which parts of the development process were the most painful.
  - arihelgason 15y ago
    People who have been working seriously on robotics in recent years probably have a strong sense of what's hard and what's easier.
  - dlikhten 15y ago
    I second this. While current designs make Asimov's stories seem sci-fi, perhaps when we make the first, the second and third would become more and more trivial. However one note is that Asimov's stories have one common theme that could not be known until now. Hardware is what drives everything. Today we know hardware is an enabler, software is everything.
  - jerf 15y ago
    We already have computers wildly more advanced than anything in Asimov's universe (until his very late writings), even as his robots firmly remain science fiction. Yes, we know that he was wildly wrong about what would be easy and hard about robots and computers. It is bizarre to go back and read his stories in which robots are walking and talking, but it takes a massive robot brain installed in a permanent emplacement to get little more "raw" computational power than a 1970s mainframe. Unless you travel back in time and reveal the secrets of robotic brains to those in the 1950s, it's a done deal.
  - lsc 15y ago
    Asimov thought that it'd be easier to make general-purpose human-like robots than to automate our machines one at a time using specialized automation hardware/software. In this, he has been proven wrong, as nearly all machines of industry are slowly becoming more and more automated, using hardware and software specialized to that particular machine. As far as I can tell, AI is turning out like Philosophy. Back in the day, all science was philosophy. As a particular field of philosophy became advanced enough that we can actually do things with it, we broke it out into a science, like, say, physics. The same is happening with AI. It used to be that natural language and image recognition were AI. Now that we actually have that technology working to the point where it can do useful things, it's no longer considered AI. Both philosophy and AI, I think, are catchall buckets for "We want to study these things, but we don't understand these things well enough to properly define them." I mean, it's a useful catchall, especially at first, but I think that breaking down a poorly defined field into many smaller but specifically defined fields is a natural part of scientific progress. My guess is that we will reach the capability to build something that looks like asimov-style robots, but by that point we won't see any of the technologies involved as "AI"
- timwiseman 15y ago
  Most of Asimov's stories are not hard SF and he frequently plays very loose with science when it suits his story (or occassionally a point he is trying to make through the story.) This is clearer in the Foundation Series than it is in his Robot books, but it becomes blatantly obvious in The End of Eternity which only barely pays lip service to science, yet makes beautiful points about human nature in a painstakingly crafted and entertaining story.
  - barrkel 15y ago
    My position on SF is close to how Philip K Dick put it: in SF the main characters aren't people, they're ideas. SF that purports to be scientifically rigorous in some way, or in some way predicting the future, seems to me to be missing the point. Science fiction is about today; it is about the world right now. SF is interesting in so far as it makes you consider the current condition in a different way. In so far as it is scientifically accurate, then it is speculative prediction, not science fiction.
    - narag 15y ago
      I remember what some italian? guy wrote in the prologue of the Spanish edition of Lem's Star Diaries: that some kind of science fiction, like what Swift or Lem wrote, is about the present, not the future, a critic of our current society, disguised as a futuristic tale.
  - ars 15y ago
    Considering how much he knew about science (he wrote tons of non fiction science books) if there are scientific inaccuracies in his stories it was by deliberate choice to further the story, and not out of ignorance.
  - juiceandjuice 15y ago
    What about when he describes wikipedia?
- lukejduncan 15y ago
  I always find myself thinking back to the Foundation series. In one of the novels he envisions a world where the populous can all instantly communicate by thinking, including with rocks and trees. He describes how the civilizations memories are stored in the rocks themselves. I'm always struck by how that doesn't actually sound far fetched to me, but how crazy it must have sounded then.
  - fractallyte 15y ago
    Foundation's Edge - 1984. James Lovelock's Gaia hypothesis was the basis for this (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaia_hypothesis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaia_hypothesis), and at that time, such discussion was en vogue.
Francon 15y ago
I thought the point of "terrorism" is to inflict change on behaviors and confidence of a population? Changing someone's way of life impacts their confidence which seems to be the end goal of terrorism. It stands to reason that in order to make it an ineffective tactic, change as little as possible within the population and do not react.
- dlikhten 15y ago
  TBH I have been thinking about this since 9/11. I doubt it was that philosophical. They wanted to show that they could attack us. And they did. They had ZERO, no tech, no highly trained snipers and marines, very little funding (compare al-qaida's funding with the US Government's). It is us who did it all. We "refuse to be terrorized" but instead we give up liberties like they are tumors that we will gladly shed to increase our perceived chances of survival.
  - jstanderfer 15y ago
    Agree. What's even stranger is how differently we treat different types of deaths. Anything terrorist related is something that needs to be prevented from happening again, regardless of the costs. Yet as many people die each and every month in auto accidents as died on 9/11 yet we all accept that as the cost of freedom the automobile offers us.
  - slowpoke 15y ago
    >We "refuse to be terrorized" but instead we give up liberties like they are tumors that we will gladly shed to increase our perceived chances of survival. I don't know if it is appropriate here on HackerNews, but there's this one Philosoraptor (an image meme) which just perfectly sums this up in a single sentence: "If terrorists hate us for our freedom, does this mean they're starting to like us?" http://i.imgur.com/XbmFg.jpg http://i.imgur.com/XbmFg.jpg
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- notahacker 15y ago
dlikhten 15y ago
Forget terrorism. This is EXACTLY the same as God and Elevators. Think about it. Lets start easy: I see people every day come into an elevator and press the door close button like it is the only way to get air. Nobody realizes that the button does nothing. Furthermore many do, but they do it any ways on the off chance that it saves them an extra millisecond here or there of waiting. It never gives any benefit. However "may as well do it just in case it works". Trivial to disprove but still. God: People worship. Why? Do we know god does exist? no we don't. In fact all signs point to got not existing. Why worship though? On the off chance that god does exist and we won't go to hell. It does not matter that there is no god, people will still worship. Both examples are ways for people to feel better about something they can't control and makes them feel that they can. Now the TSA is exactly the same. It makes no difference, or it does, all signs point to the TSA being complete horsecrap, but people want it just in case there is a possibility they can prevent an act of terrorism and save 10 people at the price of insane expenses, time expenses, people unalbe to travel, personal rights violated, etc.
- timwiseman 15y ago
  After spending an entire semester in a course on the philosophy of religion and revieing things like the Scopes Monkey Trial during law school, I see arguments both for an against the existence of God. I think there is no proof either way. I personally believe in God and am in fact Christian, but that is a personal choice based on faith and I have great respect for people who have chosen other faiths or who believe that there is no God. This however is different. It can be shown that certain security measures actually are quite useful (sturdy, locked cockpit doors separating pilots and passengers for instance.) It can be shown that others are completely ineffective at their stated goals and seek only to avoid "donothingism" and fall into security theater
  - jpulgarin 15y ago
    Do you think atheists will go to hell?
  - burgerbrain 15y ago
    What evidence is there that supports the existence of a supernatural being? No, I think the TSA and religion are quite similar.

176 points by bdhe 15y ago

I love Asimov's stories, but it always pains me at how wrong his guesses were in regards to what would be easy and what would be difficult when it came to robotics.

jxcole 15y ago
Since no one has successfully made a robot worthy of an Asimov story, I would say that no one knows what is easy vs hard when it comes to robotics. We can make guesses but in the end until someone has a working copy, we won't know which parts of the development process were the most painful.
- arihelgason 15y ago
  People who have been working seriously on robotics in recent years probably have a strong sense of what's hard and what's easier.
- dlikhten 15y ago
  I second this. While current designs make Asimov's stories seem sci-fi, perhaps when we make the first, the second and third would become more and more trivial. However one note is that Asimov's stories have one common theme that could not be known until now. Hardware is what drives everything. Today we know hardware is an enabler, software is everything.
- jerf 15y ago
  We already have computers wildly more advanced than anything in Asimov's universe (until his very late writings), even as his robots firmly remain science fiction. Yes, we know that he was wildly wrong about what would be easy and hard about robots and computers. It is bizarre to go back and read his stories in which robots are walking and talking, but it takes a massive robot brain installed in a permanent emplacement to get little more "raw" computational power than a 1970s mainframe. Unless you travel back in time and reveal the secrets of robotic brains to those in the 1950s, it's a done deal.
- lsc 15y ago
  Asimov thought that it'd be easier to make general-purpose human-like robots than to automate our machines one at a time using specialized automation hardware/software. In this, he has been proven wrong, as nearly all machines of industry are slowly becoming more and more automated, using hardware and software specialized to that particular machine. As far as I can tell, AI is turning out like Philosophy. Back in the day, all science was philosophy. As a particular field of philosophy became advanced enough that we can actually do things with it, we broke it out into a science, like, say, physics. The same is happening with AI. It used to be that natural language and image recognition were AI. Now that we actually have that technology working to the point where it can do useful things, it's no longer considered AI. Both philosophy and AI, I think, are catchall buckets for "We want to study these things, but we don't understand these things well enough to properly define them." I mean, it's a useful catchall, especially at first, but I think that breaking down a poorly defined field into many smaller but specifically defined fields is a natural part of scientific progress. My guess is that we will reach the capability to build something that looks like asimov-style robots, but by that point we won't see any of the technologies involved as "AI"
timwiseman 15y ago
Most of Asimov's stories are not hard SF and he frequently plays very loose with science when it suits his story (or occassionally a point he is trying to make through the story.) This is clearer in the Foundation Series than it is in his Robot books, but it becomes blatantly obvious in The End of Eternity which only barely pays lip service to science, yet makes beautiful points about human nature in a painstakingly crafted and entertaining story.
- barrkel 15y ago
  My position on SF is close to how Philip K Dick put it: in SF the main characters aren't people, they're ideas. SF that purports to be scientifically rigorous in some way, or in some way predicting the future, seems to me to be missing the point. Science fiction is about today; it is about the world right now. SF is interesting in so far as it makes you consider the current condition in a different way. In so far as it is scientifically accurate, then it is speculative prediction, not science fiction.
  - narag 15y ago
    I remember what some italian? guy wrote in the prologue of the Spanish edition of Lem's Star Diaries: that some kind of science fiction, like what Swift or Lem wrote, is about the present, not the future, a critic of our current society, disguised as a futuristic tale.
- ars 15y ago
  Considering how much he knew about science (he wrote tons of non fiction science books) if there are scientific inaccuracies in his stories it was by deliberate choice to further the story, and not out of ignorance.
- juiceandjuice 15y ago
  What about when he describes wikipedia?
lukejduncan 15y ago
I always find myself thinking back to the Foundation series. In one of the novels he envisions a world where the populous can all instantly communicate by thinking, including with rocks and trees. He describes how the civilizations memories are stored in the rocks themselves. I'm always struck by how that doesn't actually sound far fetched to me, but how crazy it must have sounded then.
- fractallyte 15y ago
  Foundation's Edge - 1984. James Lovelock's Gaia hypothesis was the basis for this (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaia_hypothesis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaia_hypothesis), and at that time, such discussion was en vogue.

Francon 15y ago

I thought the point of "terrorism" is to inflict change on behaviors and confidence of a population? Changing someone's way of life impacts their confidence which seems to be the end goal of terrorism. It stands to reason that in order to make it an ineffective tactic, change as little as possible within the population and do not react.

dlikhten 15y ago
TBH I have been thinking about this since 9/11. I doubt it was that philosophical. They wanted to show that they could attack us. And they did. They had ZERO, no tech, no highly trained snipers and marines, very little funding (compare al-qaida's funding with the US Government's). It is us who did it all. We "refuse to be terrorized" but instead we give up liberties like they are tumors that we will gladly shed to increase our perceived chances of survival.
- jstanderfer 15y ago
  Agree. What's even stranger is how differently we treat different types of deaths. Anything terrorist related is something that needs to be prevented from happening again, regardless of the costs. Yet as many people die each and every month in auto accidents as died on 9/11 yet we all accept that as the cost of freedom the automobile offers us.
- slowpoke 15y ago
  >We "refuse to be terrorized" but instead we give up liberties like they are tumors that we will gladly shed to increase our perceived chances of survival. I don't know if it is appropriate here on HackerNews, but there's this one Philosoraptor (an image meme) which just perfectly sums this up in a single sentence: "If terrorists hate us for our freedom, does this mean they're starting to like us?" http://i.imgur.com/XbmFg.jpg http://i.imgur.com/XbmFg.jpg
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
notahacker 15y ago

dlikhten 15y ago

Forget terrorism. This is EXACTLY the same as God and Elevators. Think about it. Lets start easy: I see people every day come into an elevator and press the door close button like it is the only way to get air. Nobody realizes that the button does nothing. Furthermore many do, but they do it any ways on the off chance that it saves them an extra millisecond here or there of waiting. It never gives any benefit. However "may as well do it just in case it works". Trivial to disprove but still. God: People worship. Why? Do we know god does exist? no we don't. In fact all signs point to got not existing. Why worship though? On the off chance that god does exist and we won't go to hell. It does not matter that there is no god, people will still worship. Both examples are ways for people to feel better about something they can't control and makes them feel that they can. Now the TSA is exactly the same. It makes no difference, or it does, all signs point to the TSA being complete horsecrap, but people want it just in case there is a possibility they can prevent an act of terrorism and save 10 people at the price of insane expenses, time expenses, people unalbe to travel, personal rights violated, etc.

timwiseman 15y ago
After spending an entire semester in a course on the philosophy of religion and revieing things like the Scopes Monkey Trial during law school, I see arguments both for an against the existence of God. I think there is no proof either way. I personally believe in God and am in fact Christian, but that is a personal choice based on faith and I have great respect for people who have chosen other faiths or who believe that there is no God. This however is different. It can be shown that certain security measures actually are quite useful (sturdy, locked cockpit doors separating pilots and passengers for instance.) It can be shown that others are completely ineffective at their stated goals and seek only to avoid "donothingism" and fall into security theater
- jpulgarin 15y ago
  Do you think atheists will go to hell?
- burgerbrain 15y ago
  What evidence is there that supports the existence of a supernatural being? No, I think the TSA and religion are quite similar.